


Counting Out The Years

by LigerCat



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Background Character Death, Bittersweet Ending, Dementia, Future Fic, Gen, I'm Bad At Summaries, Loneliness, Major Original Character(s), Male-Female Friendship, Nurses & Nursing, Old Age, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Somewhat sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2020-12-27 08:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LigerCat/pseuds/LigerCat
Summary: "They believed it all as children. We took them on all sorts of adventures, but then they grew up. I mean, everyone grows up, but all of that magic of childhood becomes nonsense to them when they do. Figments of make-believe. I think... something gets lost along the way when people grow up.It makes me grateful that I never did."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Phineas and Ferb. I do own the OCs.

"Six years of nursing school and this is where I get stuck." Emily had her feet propped up on the desk as she leaned her head over the back of the chair to look at the other nurse on duty. "We don't even do anything."

"We do plenty." Carol flipped between the data filling in and a game of solitaire.

"It's all automated." She dropped her feet to the floor. "I want to help people, not monitor freaking robots." Working at an old folks' home hadn't been in her plans either. She was supposed to be as some hospital, helping save lives, not watching them slowly fade away from age.

A shill beep sounded from the computer making Emily flinch.

Carol turned to face her, a thin smile on her overly lipsticked lips. "Sounds like you have a robot to monitor."

"Great."

* * *

Emily glanced at the holographic screen, checking the location again with a frown. If the bot was broken, it shouldn't be moving. Unless the emergency shut-down was malfunctioning as well.

Reaching the room it should be in, she stopped at the sound of talking coming from inside. Biting her lip, she pressed her ear to the door. The words were too low to make out. She pushed the door open.

And stared at the scene inside.

The robot had been completely taken apart and being resembled by the muttering man. His grey hair fell across his face as he knelt the middle of the mess on the floor.

"What are you doing?" She didn't like the robots, but they were uber expense and having one be destroyed on her watch meant it was coming out of her paycheck.

"I tripped over it in the hall." The man didn't look up as he spoke, his winkled hands shifting over the parts with practiced ease. "The inner workings are pretty basic but the construction is shoddy so the wires become loose with wear." Pausing, he pointed at a screwdriver just out of his reach. "Could you hand me that?"

"Uh, yeah?" Emily walked around the pieces of the bot to pick it up. Maybe he wasn't a member of the home. She hadn't met their maintenance man yet, there was nothing to say he couldn't be old himself. She handed him the screwdriver.

"Thank you." He resumed work. "Once I got it apart, I saw the amount of overall wear, I figured I'd just do an overhaul and save everyone some time. 'Sides, it's not like there's anything else interesting to do around here."

Shoving some of the parts out of her way, Emily crouched down next to him. "So you're the maintenance man?"

He glanced at her, smiling, it made the lines around his eyes crinkle behind his glasses. "I am today."

"Only today?" She kept her voice light. But that wasn't good. If he didn't know what he was doing, it wouldn't be covered if the bot malfunctioned and hurt someone. If he lived at the home, he shouldn't be doing unauthorized actives either.

He shrugged. "And maybe next time I find a broken one." Suddenly, he froze. "Where are my manners?" Twisting towards her, he held out a hand. "Phineas."

She stared at the dirt-streaked hand for a second before grasping it. "Emily."

Technically, she should stop him and call it in at the front desk, instead, she sat back and watched as he seamlessly reassembled the robot.


	2. Chapter 2

Emily waited for the file to load, grateful there was only one Phineas living at the home. When it loaded, she made a mental note of his room number before skimming the info.

There was a simple note that he had a living family. Medical records that showed he'd lived a healthy enough life, she paused on the most recent additions to them.

He'd been admitted for recovery from a broken hip. According to the note attached, he sustained it repairing his neighbor's roof.

Emily smothered a laugh. From the little interaction she'd had with him, she believed that.

The next addition killed her amusement:

Patient showing first signs of dementia.

* * *

Emily stood in front of his room. Occasionally, she'd have to check in on someone, but the robots normally did that from them.

But this wasn't a check-up.

She knocked lightly. It was reasonable he wasn't in there. Unlike most of the people here, he'd made it clear he didn't prefer to stay in his room. Thinking about how easily he'd worked on the health care robot, she felt a sickness settle in her stomach at the idea of him losing that skill and so much more in a few years.

"Coming!" A moment after the call, the door swung open. Phineas blinked at her before grinning. "Emily. I didn't expect you." Stepping back, he continued, "Come in."

It was with a jolt that she realized she hadn't planned this far. But she was curious about him. She walked in.

"Sorry for the mess, but no one ever comes in here. Well, other than me but that doesn't count." Phineas passed her, a bit of a bounce in his step. She wondered if he was always like that or if he was that happy to have company.

She didn't see much of a mess though. There were some tools scattered around but nothing looked like it was being worked on. Her eyes found the row of photos hanging up. Most of them featured younger Phineas, his hair full of red. Moving closer to the wall, she looked at the other people in them. A black-haired woman and a green-hair man were in several with him and others.

"Your family?"

Phineas came over to her. "Yeah." Reaching out, he straightened a picture of the man and woman, they were dressed in winter gear and appeared to be on a mountain. "My best friends, Ferb and Isabella."

"Where was that taken?" She glanced at him, waiting to search for any hesitation or confusion when he answered.

But there wasn't any.

"Himalayas. We were visiting an old friend." A fond smile spread across his face. "I wish I could go there again. It's been so long since I last saw Klimpaloon."

The name familiar, but she couldn't place it or where she'd hear it before. "Klimpaloon?"

"The magical old-timey bathing suit that lives in the Himalayas."

Emily stared at him.

Phineas must have noticed because his smile faded into a frown. "What?"

She couldn't contradict him. Interacting with dementia suffers hadn't been the focus of her training, but she'd still learned that you were supposed to go along with their delusions.

"You don't believe me."

"No, that's not it."

Smiling again, Phineas shook his head. "It's fine. No one does until they see him first hand."

Relaxing a bit, she smiled a little herself. "It does sound outlandish."

"I could tell you the story, if you have time."

Emily touched the thin band on her wrist to check the time. "My lunch breaks only half over." And if she didn't return to the desk, she doubted anyone would care. Carol could always page her if something happened.

"You're on your lunch break?" The tinge of worry in his tone caught her off guard.

"Yes?" It had been the first opportunity she'd had to slip away.

"I know what we're gonna do then." He linked his arm with hers. "We're going to multitask and get you some lunch while I recall the Tale of Klimpaloon and how the Ballad of Klimpaloon rose to the top of the charts for a full two seconds."


	3. Chapter 3

Emily came into work listening to a very specific song on her EPod. To put it bluntly, Phineas story had sounded improbable, but she gone home and looked up creature anyway.

And it checked out.

It actually happened.

Coming around the front desk, she plopped down in her chair before wheeling it over to Carol.

"Morning." Emily popped her EPods out her ears. "You ever heard of a band called Love Handle?"

"No. Is it new?" Carol didn't take her eyes off her card game.

"No. It's old. Like back when people still used disks old." Blinking, she tilted her head. "Maybe older. When did they use those other things? The ones where it was like plastic blocks with holes in it or something?" She knew she'd seen one once in a museum. It was hard to believe they'd been advanced technology way back then.

Carol frowned, actually looking away from the hovering screen. "VCRs?"

"Yeah, those things."

"Why would I know anything about a band from forever ago?"

Emily shrugged. "I thought you were into old music."

"Right. Old music, like from 60's, not last century." She went back to her game. "That's stuff ancient."

Emily almost pointed out some of the music was from the 00's which wasn't last century, but it didn't seem worth it. Kicking her chair back to her area, she glanced at the monitor.

Everything looked good.

No excuse to leave her station so soon.

Absently, she tapped her nails on the desk, letting her mind wander back to yesterday. It had been interesting. She sighed. Major understatement. She'd never met someone so animated. Old people always stuck her as dull. Their days of real living seemly behind them even as they kept breathing.

Not like it was their fault, but still Phineas was different.

"You're more restless than usual."

Emily pressed her hand flat against the metal, letting the coolness of it leech into her skin. "Guess so."

A few seconds passed like that, until the desk grew warm under her hand.

"So, you going to tell me what's on your mind or leave me in suspense?" Carol twisted her head to look at her.

She shrugged. "Just a patient here."

"Don't call them patients, they're _members of assistant care_." The eye roll was audible in her voice as she repeated that they were told when hired. "What's the big deal with him?"__

_"You wouldn't understand." Emily didn't know that for sure, but the past two weeks hadn't given her high opinions of her co-worker._

_"Why not? Is he rich? I swear I get it if he's rich and you're going for that old digger angle." She paused before muttering, "I've considered it myself but finding a wealthy person here is like getting the password of a long forgotten account correct on the first try."_

_She couldn't believe that had even crossed Carol's mind. "That's not it." If he had money, she still wouldn't be going after him for that. Youthful attitude or not, the idea of flirting, or more, with someone that old repulsed her. "It's nothing like that. He's just interesting."_

_"Right," Carol drawled, giving her a wink._

_Groaning, Emily buried her face into her hands._

* * *

_Emily knocked at the door. "Phineas?" When there was no yell of coming or any sign of him from inside, she touched the handle._

_It wasn't locked._

_"He's nice, sweet even, he won't mind," she mumbled, slowing opening to door. "Phineas, you here?" The tools were picked up, as well as some other things she vaguely remembered seeing yesterday. She couldn't help but smile a little, thinking that he had expected her to come back._

_"Phineas?" She closed the door behind her as she moved farther in._

_"Over here!" The shout came from... somewhere._

_"Over where?" She kept walking._

_"Window!"_

_Emily stopped. Window? One of the windows was open. Was he outside? He couldn't be. They were on the third floor. _

_Still, she looked outside._

_"Hey, Emily."_

_Her eyes widened when they locked onto him._

_Phineas just grinned, leaning back against the tree truck. A limb passed only about a foot from the outer wall of the building. The limb he was perch on._

_"What are you doing?" This was so bad._

_"Relaxing." He shrugged. "It's nice out here."_

_"It's hot out here." She'd been sweating from her walk from the parking lot._

_"I've always liked the heat." Closing his eyes, Phineas sighed. "I think I like it even more now than when I was younger. I was never cold during the summer as a kid."_

_He had his legs propped up on the branch. It made Emily breathe heavy._

_"You should come back inside." Should she call someone? Robots weren't equipped for this. He could fall climbing back inside, and while he wasn't a large man, she didn't think she could hold him up if he did._

_"You should come out." He peeked open one eye. "The limb's solid."_

_Solid or not, she didn't want to. "No thanks." She glanced down, mouth going dry. It was so far._

_"Emily?" The concerned call of her name barely registered. "Hey, Emily."_

_She blinked, tearing her eyes around from the drop, before prying her fingers from the windowsill. Taking a shaky breath, she refocused on Phineas._

_He was working his back towards the window, a slight discomfort on his face that vanished behind a smile when he saw her looking at him. "I'll be right there."_

_"Be careful."_

_That only made him grin more. "Don't worry. I've been climbing on things since I was little. It's not a skill I lost with time."_

_The entries in his file came to her mind, and she bit her tongue._

_Reaching her, Phineas swung a leg over so both were on the side facing the building. Emily readied herself to grab onto him. But he pushed himself off, practically hopping partway into the open window before slipping the rest of the way through._

_He brushed his hands together. "If I'd known you were acrophobic, I would've picked a different activity while I waited."_

_"It's not a big deal." The tremor still hiding in her voice betrayed her words._

_But Phineas just nodded._

_"I was..." Emily trailed off, running her tongue around her mouth in an attempt to moisten it. "I was hoping you might be willing to tell me more stories?"_

_Phineas stared at her. "You want to hear more?"_

_"Yeah."_

_He bounced of his heels. "I'd love to! No one ever wants to listen to me. Expect Ferb, but Ferb always listens to be, and he's rarely around."_

_"Your brother? He visits you here?" Phineas had mentioned him yesterday, they sounded close, but she'd assumed he'd passed on from he way he'd spoken of him._

_"Sometimes." His bouncing stopped. "He can't come as often as we'd both like."_

_"I'd like to met him."_

_Phineas fell silent._

_She didn't know what to make of it. "Could I record your stories?" If they were like the one he told her yesterday, she didn't think they should be lost to time. Or to his memory when the dementia really took hold over him._

_"Sure." His smile was back but smaller. "No one ever wants to hear them you know. They're written off as fairy tails or an overactive imagination."_

_"Who writes them off?" She ignored the little voice reminding her she'd written it off as just that before finding proof._

_His voice soft when he started speaking, "My kids, nieces, nephews. They believed it all as children. We took them on all sorts of adventures, but then they grew up. I mean, everyone grows up, but all of that magic of childhood becomes nonsense to them when they do. Figments of make-believe. I think... something gets lost along the way when people grow up." He smiled, a little sadly. "It makes me grateful I never did." Then he glanced at her, but the faraway look in his eyes made her wonder if he was seeing her or something, someone, else. "After Isabella died, I stopped trying as hard to make them believe. If they wouldn't believe it with both of us telling them, I didn't think they'd believe when it was just me."_

_"I'm sorry." She touched his arm, the action made the look in his eyes fade. "Do they come to see you?"_

_"Only Ferb does." He placed her hand on top of hers. "Nothing could keep him away forever." His hand dropped from hers. "I should tell you about the rollercoaster."  
The sudden change in subject threw Emily. "The what?"_

_"The rollercoaster. It all started on the first day of summer of... or maybe it started with the fair and the rollercoaster there, and didn't you say you wanted to record this?"_


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Emily made an excuse to leave the desk as soon as possibly.

Carol hadn't seemed to care. Sometimes, having a disinterested co-worker was useful.

She was about to knock on his door when she heard him speaking.

"...record me. So I figure I'll stay here until I've finished telling her about that summer. Maybe some other stuff too. Is there anything specific I should mention?"

Leaning closer to the door, she tried to hear a reply, but didn't hear anything. He was probably talking over a private line.

"I almost forgot about that. And don't worry, I still plan to come there after. I'm just putting it off a little, then we can be together like always again."

A second passed.

"You don't have to be so happy about the delay, Ferb."

Ferb. She grinned. Maybe she could convince Phineas to let her talk to him. She knocked.

"Hold on! I'm coming."

Phineas opened the door, and no signs of an ongoing long-distance conversation met her eyes.

"Were you talking to someone?" She tried to sound disinterested.

"Just Ferb." He shrugged. Walking out into the wall, he closed the door. "C'mon, it's a nice day. We should enjoy it instead of staying inside."

It was still hot, but she didn't argue.

* * *

Phineas circled the pond. Completely artificial, right down to the fish and plants growing in it. It cut down on upkeep or something. He stooped, picking up a stone. Even from a few feet away, Emily could hear the quiet hiss that left him when he stood back up.

Phineas rolled his shoulders before giving her a small grin. "As much as I hate to say it, age is definitely catching up with me."

"I hadn't noticed." She eyed the smooth stone in his hand. "What's that for?"

"Skipping." Turning to face the pond, he rubbed his fingers over the stone.

"What?" Why would he need a stone to skip?

He glanced at her. "You must have skipped stones before."

Emily shook her head. "Why would you want to skip over a stone?"

"You don't--That's not it." Phineas laughed, sounding more awkward than carefree. "What do you kids do these days?"

"VR and stuff."

"They couldn't put this in VR?" he muttered. "Okay, come over here. I'm gonna show you how to do this."

Curious, Emily moved a little closer.

Phineas narrowed his eyes before tossing the stone.

It hit the water and disappeared under it.

Emily blinked. "Uh, fun?"

"I'm out of practice. It's supposed to skip across the water. It's... it is fun, when it works right."

"Oh." She still didn't see the appeal.

"Help me find another stone?"

"Sure." She'd gotten an okay look at it. She started walking around the area like he had.

"Ferb was always better at this than me. He could make it do things."

"Like what?" Picking up a rock, she turned it over in her hands before dropping it.

"Make it skip around in circles or ovals. He made one go in a square once." Phineas mimed out the shapes as he spoke. "That was something to see. I think it's cause he paid more attention when Dad taught us things. I mean, I wanted to but there were always so many distractions."

"You miss him."

He half-shrugged. "Well, yeah. I miss all of them."

Them. Family? Friends? Emily decided it didn't matter in the end.

* * *

"So you actually shot your sister out of a canon?" Having managed to show her how to skip a stone, Phineas had resumed his stories.

"Apparently." Phineas rubbed the back of his neck. "I thought something seemed off, the math should've been correct and it wasn't, but I didn't think it was because it was a different person. I thought we'd just guesstimated wrong."

"But didn't they look different?" Emily couldn't wrap her mind around it. Same outfit or not, there had to have been some tell.

"I not a very observant person." He leaned back on the metal bench. "Why does no one come out here?"

It was a good question. The grounds of the home were manicured with walking trails and plenty of trees and places to sit and relax.

But the robots weren't programed to come out here. While having the residents stay in their rooms and community areas simplified things, they weren't prisoners. Bots or no, they could go where ever they pleased.

It was their choice not to.

"I don't know." Before she could say more, her band beeped. Sighing, she activated it and read the message. "I have to go. One of the bots didn't report in."

"Do you want me to come with?" The hint of hopefulness in his voice made it harder to turn him down.

"Thanks, but you shouldn't." Standing up, Emily smiled at him. "See you tomorrow?"

"Can't wait."


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you need help?" Emily scooted closer to the end of the sofa.

"No, I know... I know it's here." Phineas dug through a desk drawer. "I know it is."

Sighing, she laced her fingers in her lap. It was a bad day. Not bad by overall standards, but bad by his. Over the past month and a half, she'd seen a few of these days. The first time had been the worst, she hadn't known what the slight floundering of his smile when the greeted her meant. Not until they'd been talking a good half-hour and it finally hit her that he couldn't remember her name.

Since then, she grown more used to it. It didn't matter if those days, his sentences contained the half-spoken words or clever little work arounds when he forgot one completely even the derailments of his stories as he realized he couldn't remember a detail and decided changing the subject was better than admitting it was something she could sit though.

But sometimes it got hard to keep the smile on her when frustration flashed in his eyes, only to be hidden behind jokes and smiles and tales of his youth.

"Ah ha!" Phineas spun around, holding up a thick brown book. "Found it. I knew it was here."

"Great." Emily matched his smile as he walked over to sit next to her. "What is it...?"

"Scrapbook." Leaning back, he flipped the book over so she could see the cove. A faded, red P & F plastered onto an equally faded yellow page of construction page. He ran his hand over it, tracing the letters. "There's a digital copy of this too, the-the-" He broke off, frowning. "A digital version, but I like this one."

Emily moved closer to look at it. The last time she'd seen a scrapbook had been at her grandparents' house when she was a child. "Is it yours?"

"It is now." His smile came back sadder than before. "Irving made it. Ferb always thought he was creepy."

"Was he?" Irving had featured in a few of the stories he'd told her, but Phineas spoke of him like a friend and mentioned nothing that would lead her to believe he was creepy.

"Kinda?" Phineas opened the book, revealing black construction paper with pictures of Phineas and others and... things Emily didn't know the names of somehow attached to them. He stopped on a picture of him and his brother standing in a kitchen, a another boy with orange hair and pink glasses photo-bombing the background. "That's Irving. He stalked as for awhile, photoshopping himself into pictures. But I think it was him managing to steal a lock of Ferb's hair that went over the line for Ferb." Quickly, he flipped through more pages. "It should still be in here."

"You've shown me pictures before." Though not of the things the brothers had built, but of them, their friends and family. Most from when they were children and teens, with a distinct lack of pictures of his children and grandchildren. The only one she'd seen with them was a family Christmas photo, Phineas had pointed his kids and his nieces and nephews and their kids with more pride in his voice over his brother's and sister's children than his own.

It made Emily wonder what had happened between them, it couldn't be over them not believing his adventures, but Phineas never offered anything else and she didn't feel it was her place to ask. 

"I know." Closing the book, he glanced at her. "I plan to leave soon. The plan was to leave a while back actually, but then you came and you want to hear about everything and I wanted to tell you. But Ferb can't come visit me as much anymore so I want to go to him."

Even though she'd overheard the conversation, hearing him say it to her was different. "Is it far?" She would visit if he let her.

Phineas didn't answer right away. "It's very far."

"Can I come to see you there?" If he said no, she wouldn't be hurt. Not too badly, at least. She wouldn't blame him if he didn't want her to see him get worse.

His smile didn't match the expression in his eyes. "Someday. But not too soon, okay?" Before she could ask why, he hurried on, "I want some time to catch up and everything."

"Okay, not right away." Emily could wait, but she wasn't sure how long.

"Until then," Phineas held the scrapbook out to her, "I want you to keep this for me."

She made no move to take it. "Phineas, I can't-"

"'Course you can." He took her hand in his cool one, placing it on the book. "I know everything thing in here, and you have all those recording of the stories but nothing visual to match them."

Grasping the worn spine, she fought back the wave of emotion threatening to drag her under. "I'll give it back when I come to see you."

"I'm sure you will." He kept his eyes on the book. "But until then, it's yours. Take good care of it for me."


	6. Chapter 6

Emily felt sick. Sitting slightly bent over with her head in her hands wasn't helping her twisting stomach or the burn of acid working its way up to the back up her throat and no farther.

"Emily."

The soft call of her name didn't have her looking up.

Carol must have realized she wasn't going to knowledge her because she continued, "I called his family."

Painfully swallowing both the acid and the lump in her throat, Emily opened her eyes. "Any... any idea when they'll get here?"

"They aren't."

"They're not?" Emily echoed, numb. Not bothering to wipe the tears as she finally raised her head. "What do you mean they're not? What about his things?" As far as she could tell, his whole life was recorded in those pictures and blueprints and whatever else he had hidden away in his room. And his family didn't want that?

The discomfort in Carol's eyes didn't match the compassionate smile she had plastered on her lips. "We'll have the robots sterilize the room."

Sterilize. Emily knew what that meant, the robots would not only clean the room, they take care of everything in it by bringing the things, _Phineas' things_, to the bin for disposal.

"It doesn't make sense." Close to his children or not, someone in his family had to want them. "What about his brother?"

Carol shrugged, her practiced, but rarely used, bedside manner expression slipping for a second. "I can only tell you what I got from the call. If it's this big a deal, give them a few hours to change their minds before ordering the sterilization. But if this comes back on us, I'm telling them it was all you."

That was fine. Emily nodded. "I'd like to sit here a while." When Carol didn't get the hint, she added, "Alone."

"Fine. Just don't do anything that would get me fired."

Emily waited for her to leave and close the door before getting up from the sofa. She walked to the wall, its pictures were still as interesting as they were the first time she'd seen them.

Thinking back, she wondered if she should have known something was off. Phineas had acted weird yesterday. She'd assumed it was one of his bad days at first, but the drifting off subject, the aborted sentences, the way he kept looking at her. He'd hugged her before she left.

He'd known. Something must have changed and he knew was going die.

Once she had her emotions under control, she'd find some way to get in contact with Ferb. The brothers sounded incredibly close, he had to want Phineas' things if no one else did.

She lowered her gaze. And blinked.

There was a chest shoved against the wall. It hadn't been there yesterday.

Rubbing the slowly leaking tears from her eyes, she knelt down in front of it. It wasn't huge, maybe a foot tall and two feet wide. All carved wood that showed off an interlocking pattern of squares, triangles, and half-circles.

Touching the cool, metal latch, she hesitated. But he wouldn't have put it there if he didn't want it opened, maybe not by her but by someone.

She opened the chest.

A stack of folders filled up one half, neatly folded blueprints took up the other.

Phineas had shown her some of his old blueprints before so she skipped over those for now. She picked up the first folder and opened it. The page looked like a news article, the paper slightly faded with age. A photo of Phineas and his brother when they were kids took up a large section of it above writing talking about world records. She smiled, a bit sadly, they looked happy.

Flipping through the loose papers, she realized they were all printed out news articles about one or both of the brothers, the pictures showing them from little kids to teenagers to adults. It was too much to read. Setting it down next to her, she pulled out the next folder, more news articles. Emily put it aside without looking through it.

The next was more printed out pages but not of their achievements. She understood why he kept the other stuff, but staring at the obituary, she didn't know why he'd want to keep a copy of it. Without reading passed the name Isabella Flynn, she started going through the obituaries, reading off the names: Baljeet Tjinder, Buford van Stomm, Candace Gertrude Flynn Johnson, Jeremy Johnson--

Snapping her eyes closed, she blocked out the next name. She had to have read it wrong. Her mind was playing tricks on her or something.

After a moment, she opened her eyes.

The name was the same.

Even if the name was an implausible coincidence, she'd seen his picture enough times over the past weeks to recognize him. Even if he was much older in it than the ones Phineas had shown her.

Still, the printed name of Ferbs "Ferb" Fletcher inspired in her a need to deny the implications.

But she couldn't.

A new round of tears filled her eyes. She'd been wrong, something hadn't changed recently.

Phineas had only followed through on his plan to join his brother.


End file.
